Posted
by
kdawson
on Wednesday January 14, 2009 @08:48AM
from the walking-away-slowly dept.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In November, 2004, several judges in the federal court in Austin, Texas, got together and ordered the RIAA to cease and desist from its practice of joining multiple 'John Does' in a single case. The RIAA blithely ignored the order, and continued the illegal practice for the next four years, but steering clear of Austin. In 2008, however, circumstances conspired to force the record companies back to that venue. In Arista v. Does 1-22, in Providence, Rhode Island, they were hoping to get the student identities from Rhode Island College. After the first round, however, they learned that the College was not the ISP; rather, the ISP was an Austin-based company, Apogee Telecom Inc., meaning the RIAA would have to serve its subpoena in Austin. The RIAA did just that, but Apogee — unlike so many other ISP's — did not turn over its subscribers' identities in response to the subpoena, instead filing objections. This meant the RIAA would have to go to court, to try to get the Court to overrule Apogee's objections. Instead, it opted to withdraw the subpoena and drop its case."

While the Ignore-any-law-you-don't-like thing doesn't appeal to me I'd instead sugest creating some decently effecient darknets to make this "Lets sue everyone and drop the case against anyone who looks like they have the means to actually defend themselves" utterly impotent.

It actually is closer to infringing on copyrighted goods, because that's exactly what it is.

Stealing means what was taken was against the owner's consent, and that the owner is now deprived of that good. Copyright infringement, on the other hand, means that you have made an unauthorized copy of a work and are selling it/giving it away/making more copys, which is the case here.

You should read some of my posts, because I actually have said it. Here's the executive summary:

(Please try to consider the following from a layperson's or "common-sense" perspective, rather than a lawyer's one.)

Copyright exists only at the whim of Congress (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the Constitution allows Congress to "promote... progress" by creating copyright, but does not require it to do so). In contrast, the ownership of property is a fundamental right.

The purpose of the afore-mentioned clause is explicitly to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts," not to create a new property right.

Copyright expires. Genuine property rights don't.

Intellectual works are fundamentally different from physical goods because their value is created by sharing and duplicating them. Property has inherent value, and can (or in many cases, must) only be used by one "owner" at a time. In contrast, an idea has no value if it is never communicated to anyone else!

Because of this, I have to conclude that copyright is not, in fact, a property right. Therefore, I take issue with your use of "owner" and "property" in the quotation above.

Now, if you rephrased that to say "I have not seen any one saying there is something 'wrong with a copyright music holder protecting their government-granted monopoly'" then that would be different.

...this is another example of the moral bankruptcy of the self-righteous.

Not all of us are "justifying personal acts of piracy". Some of us justrealize that there is more to this issue than the plush lifestyles ofA&R men or their victims.

A lot of work is still subject to "ownership" that should no longer be.Some works are no longer even available and may be lost permanently.Creativity is threatened by effectively perpetual copyright and the socialcosts of allowing publishers to lock away works that are older than anyparticipant of this forum are absurd. The consequences are rediculouswhen compared to genuine acts of theft that would have beenacknowledged as such by Hammurabi himself.

No, at most it loses marketing potential. That is a fictive amount, so it is impossible to quantify how much is really lost.

As long as it is above zero — and you don't dispute that — the actual figure is irrelevant to our determination.

"Impossible to quantify" does not rule out the quantity "zero", so your claim is false. Alternate universes where certain things may or may not have happened cannot be used as evidence of loss. Copyright infringement is no more "stealing" based on loss of potential sales than is using deceptive advertising to pull in more sales at a store. Deceptive advertising is illegal, but a competing store has no claim on the profit made via that deception.

And with that, a million voices on Slashdot suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

The only voices that would be silenced would be those of the very few who might think that a man who's devoted the past 34 years of his life to the rule of law would be in favor of infringing upon someone's legal rights. In fact, it is hard for me to imagine anyone on Slashdot who would sincerely have believed anything else.

Stealing of information by copying has been punishable by law for many years - way before the Internet.

No, infringing copyright by copying is punishable by law. Stealing by copying isn't, because you can't steal something by copying it.

It is a flawed argument to think stealing information is not a bad thing.

No one said that is wasn't a bad thing. The point was that is isn't stealing. An action isn't automatically stealing just because it is bad - if I beat you up, I won't get convicted for stealing, but I will get convicted for assault.

Many companies have their entire business model setup on proprietary information - the people here a/. may not like this - but guess what - the people here at/. were not the ones investing tons of money/time into those soft-products.

There is nothing wrong with having your business model set up on proprietary information. What _is_ wrong is abusing the legal system to catch people who may or may not be breaking the law at the expense of a large number of innocent people.

Also, that nice new fancy drug that you or your family/loved ones are taking to save their lives...that formula is most likely (for new drugs) a closely held secret by a company that spent many millions in R&D. Without these copyright protections said companies would have no reason to create life-saving medicines.

You seem to be confused. You can't copyright a physical object such as a drug - you have to patent it. You can't keep patented IP a secret, since the whole point of a patent is that it is published.

The patent system has a lot of problems, but it has nothing to do with copyright, is not the matter under discussion and last I heard the drug industry didn't go around suing random people without any credible evidence that those people have done anything wrong.

Just like drug makers have to protect their recipies from international infringements so do people who want to profit from their music.

You're trying to make a point, and I understand what you mean, but you're really arguing something that's irrelevant. You are also making people focus on the wrong thing, dragging what point you were trying to make off into the weeds. When someone says "pirating is not stealing", they are not talking about what you're talking about when you say "pirating is stealing".

If you would drop the semantics and make your point without using the words "pirate" or "steal" and instead use "copyright infringement" you would start to see how your arguments actually aren't that different from the ones you're arguing against.

Copyright infringement is not stealing, because they have different legal definitions, and there is nothing you can do about that.

That doesn't change the fact that copyright infringement can be described as "getting something you didn't pay for", and in that sense it is like stealing, but it is not the same.

That does not change whether copyright infringement is good, moral, legal, or should be done/not done on principal. There are different arguments for this, and that seems to be the point you are trying to make, but are distracting people from discussing.

Also, note that US copyright law considers the financial impact of any potential infringement, among other things.

The purpose and character (if you are benefiting financially)

The nature of the work

The amount copied

The effect on market value of the work

"Piracy" has generally been when someone copies something and sells it, like the Chinese DVDs or Windows for a dollar. Clearly you are reducing the market value, if people no longer have to pay full price. More recently, "piracy" is being used in the sense of simple copying for personal use, for situations like downloading music that you already own so you don't have to convert it to FLAC/MP3/AAC. This could be considered fair use because there is no financial benefit to you and no financial loss to the vendor (ignoring the uploading part, since those parts would be available regardless of whether you were uploading them because you got them from somewhere, so your actions are not materially contributing). So even talking about "piracy" is a muddy conversation if you don't clearly define what you're talking about.

Stealing of information by copying has been punishable by law for many years - way before the Internet.

Yes, it has. Do you know why these laws were established? (Hint: The reason had nothing to do with compensating creators for their efforts). That's a prerequisite for understanding how they should be applied with the existence of a world-changing technology like the Internet?

It is a flawed argument to think stealing information is not a bad thing.

You're the one arguing that information, which by it's very nature is infinitely reproducible and has no inherent scarcity, unlike physical objects, should be arbitrarily restricted, at great expense to society. The burden is on you to show why it is bad to copy information.

Many companies have their entire business model setup on proprietary information

True, and in fact I make my living that way. But irrelevant. Buggy whip makers had their entire business model set up on producing implements for controlling horses. Times change, businesses must change with them.

Without these copyright protections said companies would have no reason to create life-saving medicines.

Copyrights have nothing to do with medicines. You're thinking of patents. They're different, and have a completely different purpose.

BTW, I'm a big fan of copyright law, done right. Our copyright law is screwed up, and what the record labels have been trying to do is even more screwed up than the law, but it's still a very good idea if done correctly.

Oh, and I don't infringe on copyrights per the law, even though I think the law is wrong to the point of evil.

I debated modding you up instead of posting since i think your downmod was unfair.

But I wanted to address your points more, and folks can see your post by looking at the reply posts parent.

1) Stealing is not Piracy is not Copyright Infringement.2) The laws surrounding stealing (or many other crimes) have not been adjusted for inflation resulting in "felonies" for what should be misdemeanors. When the laws were passed, you would have to steal half a year's earnings to qualify for a felony-- now I earn more

Ok, even though the comparison with stealing is a poor one it's good enough to draw some paralells.

Shoplifting happens. bad thing, yada yada.

Now to combat that walmart pushes through some ridiculous legislation and then hires companies to spy on shoplifters,people who might be shoplifters and people who live near possible shoplifters.Normal customers who pay for their goods start getting patted down regularly, denied entry or exit from the store and called criminals and threatened with legal action if they tried to sell things second hand.

When they catch some 13year old stuffing a 5 dollar item into his coat they take him to court and sue him and his family for $100,000 .

In their crusade to catch the shoplifters they extort records out of local organisaitons with threats of legal action and generally abuse the legal system to find the home addresses of people who might be shoplifters.

They threaten tens of thousands of families with similar suits and offer a shoplifter settlement where you can pay a few thousand in exchange for a promise of not being sued.

Some of the people who get accused of being shoplifters are of course innocent and were simply falsely identified as shoplifters but since there's still a chance of losing absolutely everything and the weight of evidence is not the same as a criminal case those families can't take the chance of losing all their worldly goods and have to pay out of fear.

Imagine a world where walmart acted like that.Now imagine where the public sympathy would lie, with the kids who are shoplifting or with walmart?Sure violating copyright is wrong but violating privacy laws and generally abusing the legal system is much much worse.

Once again, they back down, meaning that they performed the legal equivalent of "Ha Ha Ha, just kidding, can't you take a joke?" At some point, they're going to get slapped down hard for these tactics and on that day, there will be much cheering from Slashdot.

At some point, they're going to get slapped down hard for these tactics and on that day, there will be much cheering from Slashdot.

I think it will come in the form of a rush to get ISP's headquartered in Austin. Many shools looking to avoid the legal problems would change ISP's as a risk avoidance move. Does anyone know if any Portland area ISP's are based in Austin?

My experience has been that Portland (at least in the US) means Portland, Oregon. And no, I do not live on the west coast. It just seems to be a more widely-known city than Portland, Maine is, at least in my circles.

That is probably true - unless you live in Portland, Arkansas or Portland, Connecticut or Portland, Indiana or Portland, Maine or Portland, Michigan or Portland, Missouri or Portland, North Dakota or Portland, New York or Portland, Ohio or Portland, Pennsylvania or Portland, Tennessee or Portland, Texas. Other than that, Portland means Portland, Oregon

As far as I'm concerned, you're asking half of the Great Imponderable Question. I'll add the other half:

1) They can't be making any money off this. The kinds of people they sue aren't among the wealthier members of society. There's a big difference between getting a judgment and actually collecting the money.

2) It's not acting as a deterrent. People are still out there doing what they do as recording sales continue to fall.

FUD, if they don't do it, no one will, so they press on to create fear on the part of potential file sharers and uncertainty in the general population as to what is and isn't legal.

I doubt it's working out to the ultimate benefit of the record companies, but there's probably an exec or two that feels vindicated about not being able to buy that G5 outright and having to continue to lease it because of diminishing revenue, at least he made some people miserable in return.

As far as I'm concerned, you're asking half of the Great Imponderable Question. I'll add the other half:
1) They can't be making any money off this.

Losing money hand over fist.

The kinds of people they sue aren't among the wealthier members of society.

Usually.

There's a big difference between getting a judgment and actually collecting the money.

That's right. And each default judgment cost them plenty.

2) It's not acting as a deterrent. People are still out there doing what they do as recording sales continue to fall.

So I'm told.
So the other half of the question is: Why do they keep doing this?

My theory is that (1) a corporation is managed by its management, (2) the management in the case of the big 4 record companies are total failures, and (3) this campaign was based on a premise that they fabricated to deflect attention from their own failure: that the existence of p2p file sharing software is the sole reason for their failure. They had to push the campaign to try to pretend they believed in the premise.

Did you ever read Barbara Tuchman's book "The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam"? She defines folly as an organization or government's deliberate pursuit of policies that are against their own best interests, often despite ample evidence and warnings. Aside from the semi-mythic Troy and the very real United States, she also looks at the Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation, England at the time of the American Revolution, and a couple of others. It's a fascinating book, even twenty-odd years after its first publication. Every time I read one of these RIAA posts, I'm reminded of it. Their actions seem to me to meet all her criteria for folly.

I don't look at it as "governments" or "organizations". The decisions are made by human beings. In today's world too many corporations allow the human beings in charge of the corporations to get away with murder, something like the fox being in charge of the hen house. The idiots who drove these companies into the ground aren't interested in the companies; they're interested in their own careers.

I wish we could just take all the lawyers that flagrantly violate court orders like that and put them in jail for contempt. Alas, our judicial system is such that these violations either go unnoticed or at least barely noticed by the district attorneys. They've got bigger fish to fry. But, man, once just once, one of them should teach these guys a lesson.

I don't think it's up to the DA... In every legal drama I've ever seen, it's entirely up to the judge's digression to find someone in contempt of court. My guess is that if they HAD gone before a judge in Austin, that is exactly what would have happened. Unfortunately, and IANAL, I believe that even federal judges' ruling are only regional unless the judges happen to be on the Supreme Court. So yes, the RIAA violated the ruling by filing the subpoena to the Austin ISP, but they are still free to file them i

My friends and I and I were on a road trip in RI, to see Ms Teen RI, who they'd met on a cruise (before being awarded the title, before college). My friend and I went to pick up the other friend from Worcester P.I., and decided to stop by her place and hang out. We got lost, and asked come cop for directions. It turned out we were in the exact opposite corner of the state. Three turns and 2

My friends and I and I were on a road trip in RI, to see Ms Teen RI, who they'd met on a cruise (before being awarded the title, before college). My friend and I went to pick up the other friend from Worcester P.I., and decided to stop by her place and hang out. We got lost, and asked come cop for directions. It turned out we were in the exact opposite corner of the state. Three turns and 20 minutes later, we rolled up at her house.

Wait. A slashdotter and a bunch of his friends asked a cop for directions t

While it is a good thing to see more of these ludicrous John Doe cases dismissed, it could have been rather comical to see RIAA go up before a judge that had told them to stop the bundling.
I mean come on, it always works out for you when you ignore the order of several judges.

So can we expect ISPs to start incorporating in Texas the way that credit card companies like to incorporate in Delaware [wikipedia.org]? Granted, the former would be for protection from industry harassment and the latter is for protection from usury laws, but if I were an ISP I'd certainly look on Texas as a nice place to call "home" for legal purposes.

The RIAA cannot be forgiven for the things they try and pull, or the extortion they have forced onto many people. But it drives me nuts the people that still continue to grab their music illegally which just helps prolong and reinforce the idea that the RIAA is needed (to record companies). Buy a CD, buy from iTunes, buy from Amazon, I don't care. I know people who can absolutely afford to purchase their music legally, but don't. Not because of any stance against record companies or compensation for artists. They just do it, 'because'. It's free after all. BLARG./RANT
Sorry. Just had to say it.

I have to agree with this perspective. I think that with all of the ways for a band to "get heard" nowadays, it is easier for them to make it on an indy label or by themselves. Not only to the get a larger share if we buy music directly from them, we also circumvent throwing our money at the RIAA, and further supporting their predatory practices.

But it drives me nuts the people that still continue to grab their music illegally which just helps prolong and reinforce the idea that the RIAA is needed (to record companies).

You buy into the myths that 1) piracy hurts copyright holders 2) the RIAA is afraid of pirates 3) The RIAA is the only (or best) place to get music.

For the first, see lawrence Lessig's Creative Commons and the introduction to Cory Doctorow's Little Brother. Both are posted in full on the internet, and both are selling well; I read Doctorow's book on the internet, and then bought a hardcover copy that sits on by bookshelf like CDs ought to.

If you want to hear the latest RIAA top 40 dreck, turn on the radio. It's free and it's legal, and if you want a digital copy of that single you can sample the radio. Legal? I don't know, but back in the cassette days they specifically made recording off the air legal.

I would urge everyone to NOT download, buy, or listen to RIAA music, even though any lost sales due to the boycott that has been going on for years is attributed to piracy. You have internet radio with thousands of stations with tons of indie music. You have local bands, all of whom record these days. Buy from them and you will get higher quality and a far lower price.

I know people who can absolutely afford to purchase their music legally, but don't. Not because of any stance against record companies or compensation for artists. They just do it, 'because'. It's free after all.

Odd, I don't know a single one. I hear it from the RIAA all the time, but have never met this mythical pirate. Why would one steal bottled water when you have a filtered tap on your sink and money in your pocket? Almost every non-RIAA band WANTS you to download their music, and to do it for free. They know that nobody ever lost money from "piracy" but most suffer from obscurity, including RIAA bands; they can't get everyone on the radio.

BTW, iTunes doesn't sell music, they rent it. If you want to "buy music" you need to buy a CD, as you have resale and lending rights with it. It is a physical object. When you rent from the internet, you own nothing. P2P and digital downloads should be what the indies use it for -- promotion. The RIAA is trying to kill P2P not because "piracy" hurts sales, but because your hearing indie music hurts RIAA sales.

Simpler still, I think it is just more convenient to pirate today than it is to purchase. On the pirate networks, you can download and sample thousands of tracks, decide what you like, delete the rest. Who is going to pay thousands of dollars up front for that kind of selection just to throw most of it away? The sampling features available on Amazon, etc. are a joke compared to the convenience of getting a batch and listening when you feel like it. Some of the subscription services may come close to co

The sampling features available on Amazon, etc. are a joke compared to the convenience of getting a batch and listening when you feel like it.

A real life illustration of that is how Samtanna's label almost lost a sale due to the 30 second samples. This was back when Supernatural first came out, before I was boycotting. I'd always liked that band, but hadn't listened to anything after about their third album.

I fired up CD-NOW, with the 30 second samples, and thought "holy sheep shorts, they're REALLY gone do

If you want to hear the latest RIAA top 40 dreck, turn on the radio. It's free and it's legal, and if you want a digital copy of that single you can sample the radio. Legal? I don't know, but back in the cassette days they specifically made recording off the air legal.

Well that's just silly. People want to take their music with them, and whether or not you listen to Top 40 songs/classical music/country/whatever doesn't matter. If you are a fan of independent artists, that's great, but most of what people are exposed to comes from record companies with ties to the RIAA. If my favorite artist sold their music directly to me, that would be great, but at least if I'm buying it in some format I know that at least some amount is in fact going to them.

Odd, I don't know a single one. I hear it from the RIAA all the time, but have never met this mythical pirate. Why would one steal bottled water when you have a filtered tap on your sink and money in your pocket?

It's not a myth. If I want music X and I can get it for free w/o recourse I will take it for free. If, however, there is recourse (going to jail, paying fines, etc) then I will think "hmm maybe I should go spend the 1.5 on iTunes, or record it from the radio". So it is a deterrent. Maybe not to some people who firmly believe they are safe on the anonymous internet...but some people are not willing to take that chance. It works, maybe not on the standard/. crew, but

Seriously...where the hell are their accountants at? Anyone who actually has gone through the required business classes would be well aware of how insane their imaginary losses are. Now, that is not the same as using those insane numbers to further a media blitz, but internally that nonsense does not stand up to any kind of sanity test. So...with a more realistic number on "lost sales" I can't imagine that there is a terribly high real return on their lawsuit happy nonsense. I imagine the costs of these constant legal battles take a pretty huge chunk of change.

Quantifying the amount of money lost to pirating must be next to impossible. First off, you have to deduct the number of people who would have never bought it even if there weren't a free version available. Then you have to deduct the number of people who actually do buy it after pirating it as sort of a test run to see if they'd actually like to "own" it. Only after you filter out those cases can you truly get down to the list of people who pirate and even if they had the means to buy it wouldn't because they don't believe they should have to pay for it.

as far as I'm concerned the only people they should be going after are those who sell bootleg copies, as they are actually making money off of it.

Again...this is what kills me, and why their business is such a damned train wreck. They are letting people with no fucking business sense make the decisions (namely the legal teams). Their accountants probably have a much more realistic view of the numbers and their martketing guys have got to be screaming bloody murder as more and more artists jump ship and go to this new "give it away so they buy it" style model and are taking all the money home themselves instead of giving the big labels their cut.

It's not the lawsuits that cost the RIAA a ton of money. It's all because of pirates. Y'see, if it weren't for pirates, then they wouldn't have to spend all this money on lawyers in the first place! So there ya have it... even the legal costs are a direct result of piracy. It makes PERFECT sense!

Oh hey, and on a random note, I've got this really awesome bridge for sale out in London, if you're looking to buy.

That has to be one of the best summaries I've ever read on slashdot. I didn't even have to RTFA and I am up to speed on the story.

Interesting you should say that, because I was agonizing over it. I felt maybe I put in too much stuff. But I didn't know how to convey the import of their running away with their tail between their legs, without explaining the background. Glad you feel that I'd done it right.

In November, 2004, several judges in the federal court in Austin, Texas, got together and ordered the RIAA to cease and desist from its practice of joining multiple 'John Does' in a single case. The RIAA blithely ignored the order, and continued the illegal practice for the next four years, but steering clear of Austin.

Am I missing something? So what made this illegal? If they didn't do the act in Austin then they didn't do anything illegal. I am no fan of RIAA but to call something illegal when it is not is wrong. They complied with the judges wishes and stopped doing what they were doing in the Judge's jurisdiction.

Granted, but then why are they only avoiding Austin? Why have there been no repurcussions over the past four years. Does the federal court's rulings have no teeth if the bailiff can't physically reach out and grab the guys?

Piracy is not as impactful to the overall performance of record labels as much as just not listening to the fans and adjusting to the changes in the market.

Honestly, I wish a large "sit-out" could be organized among all file-sharers. I would love to see a majority of those who do download music without consent from the copyright owner put a hault to it for say a month or two. Then I would like to see the rationalization for why album sales are still down.

Honestly, I wish a large "sit-out" could be organized among all file-sharers. I would love to see a majority of those who do download music without consent from the copyright owner put a hault to it for say a month or two. Then I would like to see the rationalization for why album sales are still down.

Taking into account they create the data from thin air, after such a sitout they could perfectly say: "Sales have improved 154% that month. Which finally proves that we were right".